Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act of 2014 -- Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. LEE. Madam President, the bill before the Senate today at once represents the best of our Nation and some of the worst of Washington. On the one hand, the primary purpose of the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, represents the best of America. In past years it has been one of the few very consistently bipartisan pieces of legislation considered by the Senate, and it usually has been afforded lengthy debate and open and transparent amendment process on the floor. That is because it is one of the most important and solemn duties of Congress to provide for our national defense.

The United States of America has the best armed services the world has ever seen, not just because of what they do, but because of who they are: honest, courageous, selfless patriots who love our country and have dedicated themselves to protecting and defending our way of life.

Of all the bills that come before Congress, the NDAA deserves to be treated with the kind of integrity and respect with which our military personnel approach their jobs. And yet the process that has unfolded this year in connection with the NDAA has fallen fall short of the standard that our armed personnel have set forth. Congress has waited until the last minute to conduct our most important business, using the holidays to fabricate a false sense of urgency. The Senate majority leader has refused to allow an open and transparent debate, shutting down our ability to offer amendments on the Senate floor to this important piece of legislation.

Finally, only a privileged few Members of Congress have a hand in drafting this bill, which was cobbled together with numerous extraneous provisions behind closed doors.

What used to be an exception to the typical legislative process, the typical legislative sausage making for which Washington has become famous, has been subsumed by the status quo, and it is exactly what is wrong with Washington today.

Each one of us as Members of Congress is here for just one reason: We have been elected to represent and serve the American people. Unfortunately, the twisted, tainted process that has produced this bill prevents all of us from carrying out this responsibility, and it threatens our obligation to do what is right for our men and women in uniform.

As the title suggests, the National Defense Authorization Act is supposed to be a relatively straightforward, largely noncontroversial bill. It is the primary legislative instrument for Congress to exercise its constitutional power granted in article 1, section 8 of the Constitution which is to provide for the common defense. But that is not what we are voting on today; that is not what we are considering in connection with this bill.

This bill, the NDAA for fiscal year 2015, is a legislative hodgepodge that includes those straightforward noncontroversial items that almost all of us support, but also numerous other provisions that are entirely unrelated to national defense.

Most egregiously, the drafters secretly added 68 unrelated bills pertaining to the use of Federal lands--the so-called lands package portion of this bill. They put that into this bill without any opportunity for debate or for a vote on any of those 68 independent bills. None of these bills were included in the version of the NDAA that the Senate Armed Services Committee debated and voted on in May of this year, because had any Member tried to include them in the normal process of our committee, they clearly would have been ruled out of the committee's jurisdiction.

Another outlier in this legislative grab bag is a provision reauthorizing a Defense Department program to train and equip ``moderate'' Syrian rebels for the next 2 years.

Now we have testimony from some of America's top military leaders warning us of the immense risks involved in this program. They have told us there is no way to guarantee these efforts won't backfire, further embroiling the U.S. military in volatile and unpredictable parts of the world--in the Middle East, in conflicts in that part of the world. Yet here we are, forced to reauthorize this risky program in order to provide for our troops and the Defense Department.

The authority for this program was first added to the NDAA in the closed committee markup process in May and then later attached to the must-pass spending bill in September, giving Senators the all-or-nothing choice of either approving this controversial program or voting against all other government spending. This is not how Congress is supposed to work.

Congress is supposed to evaluate, debate, and amend individual pieces of legislation based on their own merits, with enough time to inform and educate the American people about what their representatives are doing. Instead, it is politics as usual in Washington. Rather than an open, transparent, and inclusive process, several extraneous and sometimes controversial provisions were added to the NDAA at the last minute by a select few operating entirely behind closed doors.

As we have come to expect from the outgoing majority in the Senate, once the bill appears from behind those closed doors, the American people are denied any real debate or even a chance to read, let alone understand, the bill.

This is a shame, because there are good bipartisan amendments out there, such as the Due Process Guarantee Act, an amendment that Senator Feinstein and I attempted to offer for the Senate's consideration, which would improve the 2015 NDAA by prohibiting the indefinite detention of U.S. persons. Even though the Due Process Guarantee Act received 67 votes of support in the last Congress, it continues to be blocked by these privileged few who cobbled together this bill.

Now at the eleventh hour we are told we have to vote for everything in this legislative medley or vote for none of it. After deliberately allowing time to expire, up to the final moments before the holiday, the Senate majority leader has told the American people that the only way to support our soldiers is to support a distorted legislative process and controversial items that have never been debated in public. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines, and others who serve us in the pursuit of our national security interests deserve better.

Many of my colleagues have said that this is a ``must-pass'' bill. I would put it slightly differently. I would say we must pass legislation without political gimmicks or procedural games that enable men and women serving our Defense Department to fulfill their missions. We absolutely must pay our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines, and authorize our national defense budget as a matter of constitutional responsibility, national security, and moral duty. We must do these things. But not like this. I fear that we in the Senate have perhaps become far too comfortable with the idea that the most important issues such as paying our troops, funding our Defense Department, sending our sons and daughters halfway around the world into harm's way--that it is somehow OK to bend the rules to a breaking point and we allow our colleagues to hijack funding for our men and women in uniform to pass their unrelated political priorities.

There is no doubt that it is easier this way--easier, that is, for Senators. It is easier to outsource our representative duties to a select few and to avoid debate on the tough topics that come up along the way. But that doesn't make it right. As our courageous servicemembers and their families know, easier is rarely best.

The rules governing how a bill becomes a law are not optional. They are not arbitrary, either. They exist for a good reason: to ensure that the will of the American people is heard and followed. If we fail to adhere to the rules, then we fail in the duties we were elected to carry out, and we fail to be a truly representative democracy. But these rules are not self-enforcing. Writing them down doesn't make them so. Unless we hold them true in our hearts and in our minds and in our actions, they will be nothing more than words on paper, mere parchment barriers, as James Madison put it.

If we as an institution can accept a legislative process driven by backroom deals rather than fair and inclusive debate when we are dealing with the most important issues, then when are we ever going to do things the right way?

We can do better. The American people and especially those serving in uniform deserve better; and as we saw in the recent elections, the American people demand we do better. I think we can and we must.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

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